Following on from my Bring4th blog. A background in metaphysics and astrology but seems to have progressed largely to politics, with astrological commentary occasionally.

Monday, 29 August 2016

Murky history.

Still it appears I do not have a great deal to say... I suppose that the market constantly doing absolutely nothing, plus being under a bit more strain than normal due to work issues, has lead to a kind of 'short squeeze' on my ideas:

I've been looking at, and questioning around this Ibn Ishaq character who was Muhammeds first biographer that later scholars disagreed with him. I have been trying to find out why the later scholars did disagree with him from a scholastic viewpoint but I have found out little so far, two ideas:

A) Ishaqs work were uncomplimentary to Muhammed.
B) That the 'lying Jews' gave Ishaq the wrong accounts.

There are also other claims against Ishaq from sites like this that disagree with Ishaq for reasons like this (among others):

(B) That he held the view that Man has free will, which is kind of contrary to the Quranic perception.

The heresy!

There are, it has been explained to me, other reasons that Ishaq is not a good source. Legitimate ones. Something to do with something called the 'chains of transmission'. But without knowing what that is I cannot comment.

Regardless, this entry is not really about deciding such specific things that can never necessarily be solved. I simply wanted to share something I heard about Ishaq's account of when the Prophet Muhammed (;)) experienced his first encounter with the angel:

He was meditating in a cave as he had done for 15 years. An 'Angel' appeared to him and told him to read something, he refused without being given a reason. The Angel pressed his finger against Muhammeds chest and he felt like he was going to die. But he still refused to read when the Angel asked him to again and this happened twice more.

After all this he ran home to his wife and asked her to cover him with sheets because he was so scared. His wife convinced him that it was the Angel Gabriel and although the "Angel" never identified him/ herself so, this was what Muhammed later chose to believe.